Empty classes, users no longer sitting on public transport, possibly infested furniture on the street: France is gripped by a wave of “collective panic” over bed bugs that is causing concern right up to the top of the country.
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Right now everyone thinks they’ve seen one. Crawling on a train seat, squatting on a cinema seat… Reports of these blood-sucking insects are increasing, which, according to the authorities, has nothing to do with the scale of the phenomenon, but is increasing tenfold thanks to the viral side of social networks.
At the Elisa Lemonnier high school in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, they are very real: fourteen classes that are now “sealed” have been “infected”, not counting the CDI and a teacher’s room, according to a statement from the director Sent to teachers on Friday morning and consulted by AFP.
As a result, teachers who exercised their right to resign on Thursday have still not returned to class and are considering a strike. Of the 1,200 students, “hardly a few dozen” showed up at the facility on Friday morning, according to a teacher who wished to remain anonymous.
“There is absolute psychosis among parents and students. I keep getting messages from parents saying they won’t send their child as long as there are bed bugs,” she says.
In total, five schools in France were closed because of these insects – one of which was reopened – and several others were affected without being completely closed, according to a report from the Ministry of Education at the end of the week.
“It itches”
A few months before the Olympic Games in Paris, the great return of the pests has taken on the proportions of a state affair. The government, which also wants to reassure people abroad, says it is tackling the problem specifically. An interministerial meeting on this issue was held in Matignon on Friday.
All this, even if there is “no resurgence” of bed bugs in transport, Minister Clément Beaune assured on Wednesday.
This isn’t a “psychosis,” enthuses Marie-Christine Gesta, a pensioner who, at the age of 72, speaks from “experience”, including the last fight against bed bugs, which she discovered during a hotel stay. “It ruined my life,” explains to AFP the woman who now “looks everywhere,” including in her shopping bag.
Mrs. Gesta had recently gotten rid of these insects. Seeing her reappear therefore “brought back bad memories”. “It makes me itch just thinking about it,” complains the woman who lives near Vannes.
A fear that spreads. The presumably infested furniture is now disposed of in bulky waste and marked with “bugs”, as in a photo of a sofa, a mattress and another ironing board posted by the Internet user @masfargay on X (formerly Twitter), who is surprised: “Me “I just got home from work (work, editor’s note) and I see this. We’re living in hell.”
“There are mattresses lined up on my street with little posters asking people not to touch them. “We are afraid of ‘the flea’,” Paris-based American author Alfredo Mineo even told the Guardian.
“Obsessed”
“There is a small effect of collective panic, or even people who do not have bedbugs worry about getting them, sometimes with a slightly obsessive side,” analyzes psychiatrist Antoine Pelissolo from the CHU Henri.-Mondor in Créteil.
“This creates significant stress, which is even more pronounced in people who are already anxious,” he notes, referring to previous episodes. He then had patients who were “very poorly (…) because there is this somewhat uncontrollable, invasive side” and “the feeling that we will never get out of it”.
The fact is that the media presence has reignited demands for disinfection among private individuals, but also in public transport, who want to demonstrate their skills. The Montpellier public transport association, TAM, for example, shared on social networks on Friday photos of an “identification operation” with an agent accompanied by a sniffer dog. “Negative” result.
Before the 2024 Olympic Games, Clément Beaune had also promised, a “big spring cleaning” would be necessary.
Algeria has already announced the implementation of “preventive measures” to prevent the spread of bed bugs after reports multiplied in France, where a large Algerian diaspora lives.